Victory for protesters as Uber CEO leaves Trump’s advisory council

According to Recode‘s Kara Swisher, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is leaving President Trump’s economic advisory council. The news reportedly came from an email sent to Uber employees.

Kalanick has faced criticism for his high-profile participation in Trump’s advisory council, both from within his own company and from consumers. Pressure ramped up in the wake of the immigration ban, and a #DeleteUber movement has been trending on Twitter for most of the week.

The immigration ban controversey was brought about by Uber’s actions during airport protests. Shortly after the announcement of the immigration ban, the New York taxi workers’ union called an hour-long strike on pickups from New York’s JFK airport. The action was supposed to paralyze arrivals into the airport at a peak time, but Uber helped lessen the effects.

The company killed surge pricing at the airport, as part of its general policy to not take advantage of political protests or emergency situations. But killing surge pricing lessened the effect of the taxi drivers’ strike, and many people saw it as implicit support for the immigration ban. The #DeleteUber movement appears to have been successful, as Uber’s app dropped in the App Store and was overtaken for the first time by Lyft.

Kalanick has said that while he might be on the advisory board, he doesn’t support Trump’s policies — a view shared by fellow Silicon Valley CEO Elon Musk. But it seems that the wave of protest has swayed Kalanick, and provided that the reporting is accurate, you can chalk this one up as a victory for the anti-Trump protesters.